Ex-LA Deputy Eric Saavedra Gets 21 Months in Adam Iza Bitcoin (BTC) Crime Case

21 Months for the Crypto Godfather's Deputy

Eric Chase Saavedra, a 42-year-old former Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department deputy from the city of Duarte, was sentenced Monday to 21 months in federal prison for exploiting his police position to serve Adam Iza, the imprisoned crypto businessman who branded himself the "Crypto Godfather." Saavedra is the last of five former deputies to be sentenced in the scheme, and his term caps a case that exposed how sworn officers were quietly converted into private muscle for a single crypto client. Per the sentencing announcement published by IRS Criminal Investigation, Saavedra pleaded guilty in February 2025 to one count of conspiracy against rights and separately admitted concealing roughly $373,146 of Iza's security payments from the tax agency. US District Judge Percy Anderson also ordered him to pay $90,984 in restitution to the IRS. Before joining the case, Saavedra carried detective shield in the LASD gang-suppression unit and served on a federal task force with the US Marshals Service — credentials that made his side business unusually dangerous. As part of his plea deal, he forfeited 32 Louis Vuitton bags, 27 pairs of Gucci shoes, two Louis Vuitton wallets and a money-counting machine. The judge explicitly credited his "prompt and extensive cooperation" as the reason the sentence stayed below what co-defendants received.

How the Security Scheme Worked

Court records show Saavedra and partners founded a private security firm that staffed its shifts with active-duty LASD deputies and other law-enforcement officers. Iza, who split his time between Beverly Hills and Newport Beach, paid roughly $100,000 a month for round-the-clock protection — first from August 2021 through March 2022, then again from July 2024 until his September 2024 arrest. The plea agreement states 20 to 25 officers rotated through the operation, each collecting about $750 per shift. Prosecutors said Saavedra used his LASD access to pull personal data on people Iza was in conflict with, along with their relatives and associates. In one incident, Iza believed a target was holding a laptop containing more than $100 million in cryptocurrency: in January 2022, Saavedra misled a Los Angeles Superior Court judge with a false affidavit — claiming the victim's phone number was tied to a firearms suspect — to obtain a search warrant, then passed the resulting address to Iza. The following March, three armed men broke into the home to seize the laptop. Four other deputies were previously sentenced in the same scheme: Michael Coberg received 63 months, Scott Simpkins 18 months, Christopher Cadman 21 months and David Rodriguez 12 months. Readers tracking the market in real time can follow live spot and futures prices on MEXC.

Iza's California Sentencing on October 5

The throughline of this saga is that the criminal energy aimed at crypto wealth ran on badges, warrants and hired men rather than exploits or bridge hacks. Iza, 26, has been in federal custody since September 2024, pleaded guilty in January 2025 to conspiracy against rights, wire fraud and tax evasion, and is already serving a 15-year sentence for an attempted Bitcoin robbery and kidnapping near Danbury, Connecticut, in August 2024. His separate California sentencing before Judge Anderson is set for October 5 — the final entry on the docket. Our reading: courts are treating coercion-for-crypto as organized crime, and as long as seven-figure holdings sit in self-custody, physical intimidation remains the cheapest attack vector.